——The Hotel Catering Tourism and Allied Workers Union of Zambia (HCTWAUZ) has welcomed the move by government to train workers in hospitality industry in readiness for the forth coming UNWTO.

A statement by HCTWAUZ released to ZANIS in Livingstone today reads that there are direct benefits towards businesses if the workers are well trained in their respective daily duties such as enhanced service delivery, time is saved, accurate operations, guest confidence and many more.

The union has praised the Minister of Tourism & Arts, Silver Masebo, for realising that full preparations towards UNWTO include direct stakeholders who are employees in the sector.

“These are some of the direct benefits that we (union) have been crying for and how we also wish that there should have been a hotel built specifically as a result of these preparations, employing between 50 and 100 workers, it could have been a well remembered conference. Nevertheless, we want to thank the minister again for that and all the stakeholders involved at that decision making level,” the statement reads in part.

The union notes that depending on how it will be done the move will benefit the workersmore knowing that the skills will remain in workers even at the time the conference will have been gone and forgotten.

The union has encouraged tour operators in the industry to take it upon themselves also to employ quite a lot of initiatives towards the training of workers in the sector in preparations for the event.

The union says it knows of a few hotels that really believe in capacity building such as Sun International Hotels and few others within the regional that should be encouraged to keep it up.

“We want to thank her for her recent disclosure she made whilst in Copperbelt published in the Zambia Daily Mail of Saturday, March 30, 2013, where she discloses the plan by government to train the workers in the industry in readiness for host the first ever event in Zambia,” the statement read.

The union adds that employers must not feel at loss when consideringtraining their workers.

It adds that the benefits for UNWTO will be that wherever guests are going be hosted they shall benefit standardised service delivery regardless of the stars the hotel might be.